Anthony Dawson in ‘Dial M for Murder’.

Anthony Dawson (October 18, 1916 – January 8, 1992), born in Edinburgh, was a Scottish-born actor. Tall and long-faced, he was especially adept at playing villains as, for instance, in Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder and in several early James Bond pictures, though his face only appears in Dr No. In later films he played a number of military and religious leaders.

Dawson appeared as Prof RJ Dent in Dr No, and as Ernst Stavro Blofeld’s shadowy figure in From Russia with Love and Thunderball.

In his unpublished memoirs, Rambling Recollections, Dawson reminisced about his rile in Dial M for Murder:

… I had never met Hitchcock before, and yet he was about to do me the most fantastic good turn I could imagine. In that wonderful fat man’s Cockney voice, he said, slowly, drooping every word separately, as though he had all day: ‘Tony, I just called to let you know that I want you for this picture, so you’re quite safe to make yourself a nice deal.’ What could I say? I mumbled my thanks and put the phone down, feeling rather dazed, electrified, stunned; all of these. The full impact of this call from Hitch was very soon to come home to me.

He had two other memorable roles on his return to England from the US, including the evil Marques Siniestro in Hammer’s The Curse of the Werewolf (1961), and Professor Dent.

Throughout his career he could often be found in the films of director Terence Young, including the aforementioned Dr No, They Were Not Divided (1950), Valley of Eagles (1951), The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965), Triple Cross (1966), Red Sun (1971), Inchon (1981), and The Jigsaw Man (1983). Young also cast him as the physical presence of Ernst Stavro Blofeld in his Bond films From Russia with Love (1963), and Thunderball (1965), stroking the ubiquitous white cat. His face was never seen though, and Blofeld’s voice was provided by Eric Pohlmann and Joseph Wiseman.

After the early 1960s his roles got progressively smaller, but he continued to act until the early 1990s. His appearances in Italian films from the late 1960s onwards often led to him being confused with Italian B-movie director Anthony M Dawson, aka Antonio Margheriti.